"All this region is very level and full of forests, vines and butternut trees. No Christian has ever visited this land and we had all the misery of the world trying to paddle the river upstream." Samuel de Champlain

The federal government’s effort to clean up the Great Lakes will hit the Northland this summer with a reforestation effort miles away from Lake Superior. The U.S. Department of Agriculture this week(May 13) announced $249,000 for a project aimed at reducing the sediment that fouls the Midway and Nemadji rivers and pours into Lake Superior during snowmelt and after nearly every rain.

The Natural Resource Conservation Service will use the money to plant trees, mostly on private land, at key locations along the Nemadji and its tributaries. The government will pay 75 percent to 90 percent of the cost. Supporters say reforesting farmland that was originally cut from forests can change the hydrology of the area, slowing water down and keeping soil in place. Other efforts could pay farmers or landowners for projects that keep livestock out of streams and keep more grass on pastures to hold soil in place.

Anyone who looks out at Lake Superior from Duluth’s hillside can usually see the ruddy-brown plume into Lake Superior, through the Superior Entry, from the Nemadji River. When it rains across Carlton County, the Nemadji fills with clay and silt that runs off forests, farm fields and stream banks.

The stuff runs into creeks, streams and into the Nemadji itself and then dumps into Lake Superior through the Twin Ports Harbor. The U.S. Geological Survey says the Nemadji has the highest sediment load of any Lake Superior tributary in Minnesota or Wisconsin — more than 100,000 tons each year. That’s like backing up 23 dump trucks and unloading into the lake every day, all year.The Nemadji drains a huge, 433-square-mile area straddling the Minnesota-Wisconsin border south of Duluth, all the way into Pine County. The rolling hills and mix of farms and forests that make this area so appealing are the same qualities that contribute to the problem. The clay and sand, left by glacial Lake Duluth centuries ago, make a fragile base for an ecosystem much more prone to erosion than the nearby St. Louis River, which runs through more rocky and boggy country.

Water from rain and melting snow that was once absorbed by thick forests and wetlands along the Nemadji and its tributaries now flows quickly off fields, down roads and ditches and into streams overwhelmed by mini-floods. It wasn’t always like this. More than a century ago, the Nemadji and its tributaries ran much slower and clearer. The problem was created by intensive logging, farming, road construction and development."

The Richelieu Valley, also blessed with rich soil, mostly clay left behind from the Champlain Sea a long long time ago, has seen its trees cut down to build European ships, forts, houses and barns, to make room for farmland and cities. Industries and most of the towns now treat their wastewaters, but agricultural fields have straightened ditches and streams and are now drained artificially, so that every rain brings tons of topsoil and whatever is sprayed on crops very quickly in watercourses, overfertilizing the aquatic domain and contaminating our drinking water. There is almost no forests left in the Richelieu Valley, and in my MRC, only 17% is covered with forests, and that number is mostly thanks to the few mountains that dot the scenery here and there...

A Connecticut River fish caught four miles upstream from the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor this winter tested positive for low levels of strontium-90, a highly dangerous radioactive isotope recently confirmed in soil outside the plant. But the Department of Health said Monday(May24th2010) that the fish's strontium-90 was not related to this winter's radioactive leak at Vermont Yankee, and state officials attributed the strontium to atmospheric testing in the 1960s and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 20 years ago, which spread radioactive fallout even as far away as Vermont.

William Irwin, radiological health chief for the Health Department, said that the fish was caught on Feb. 10, four miles north of Vermont Yankee as part of the testing done in the wake of the tritium leak at the plant, which was first disclosed publicly on Jan. 7. Tests have shown the radioactive leaks, originally described as a tritium leak, actually released at least six different radioactive materials – cobalt-60, cesium-137, manganese, zinc, tritium and now strontium-90.

Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer who is a member of the Legislature's Public Oversight Panel, said he hoped the state would do samples of "hundreds of fish" rather than a handful, to get more data on the possible strontium-90 connection. But Gundersen said he had his doubts about Irwin's explanation of the source of the fish's radioactivity, noting that if the fish picked up its radioactivity from atmospheric tests and Chernobyl, it would have also tested positive for cesium-137.

Gundersen called strontium-90 "the worst" of the radioisotopes found to have leaked out of Vermont Yankee, noting it is water soluble and bone-seeking. "I would check a hell of a lot more fish," said Gundersen. "It raises a lot of concerns.""

At the end of its planned life, Gentilly II in Quebec is also scheduled for a complete upgrade so it can continue to release isotopes in our backyard and generate more radioactive waste that we still don't know how to safely dispose of. Greenhouse gases-free, indeed, if we don't include the extraction and refinement of this long-lived DNA enemy!

Canadian media artist and filmmaker Peter Mettler aerially filmed the tar sands of Alberta, Canada from a helicopter to highlight the vast scope and impact that the industrial mining site has on the environment. The result is his new film, Petropolis. The mining area of the tar sands is as big as all of England and the tar sands oil production releases five times more greenhouse gases than conventional oil production. As Mettler explains, getting the oil out of the tar sands uses roughly as much water as a city of two million people. Afterwards, 90 per cent of this water is so contaminated with toxic chemicals that it must be stored in tailings ponds so huge that they can be seen from outer space.

Interview:

There has been a lot of debate about the tar sands, but the opportunities to actually see and somehow experience them have been rare. There is a lot of information readily available out there, from a variety of perspectives, but nothing that really lets you "feel" it. The beauty of cinema is that it can deliver an experience at least somewhat close to the real thing - in this case though, seriously lacking the smell.

In Fort MacMurray, there was an abundance of oil culture too. A large amount of vehicles were on the roads at any time; the smaller vehicles tended to be SUVs. Plastic and fast-food were in abundance. Seados raced aimlessly along the river. So much seemed fabricated, temporary and disposable. The town seemed to serve mostly the boom of the economic moment, predestined to become like one of those earlier goldrush ghost towns.

I think the film has fallen into a unique position in that it has combined the resources of Greenpeace, as a large well-informed enlightening institution, with the resources of a filmmaker, and his associated vision and cinema audience. Ideally this will cross-pollinate the audiences. I think that what the film shows could be shocking to some people. Ultimately we see it as a catalyst for discussion and as a conduit to more information. The rest remains to unfold."

Until we are willing to use the bus and train, to reduce our traveling to a minimum (and by that I also mean air travel), to accept that gas is going to cost more at the pump, to stop buying plastic stuff, and to PLEASE stop subsidizing the oil and gaz industry, disasters like the tar sands and the outshone drilling spill in the Gulf of Mexico will continue to happen.

Tiré de l'article publié dans Le Devoir du 21 mai 2010 ici: http://www.ledevoir.com/environnement/nature/289363/quand-le-batiment-va-tout-va-vraiment~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~In the province of Quebec, not only there is suspicion of corruption in the construction industry and the concrete industry, but there seems to be some collusion between the governmental institutions that should protect our environment and real estate developers, with the cooperation of the construction industry. Our wetlands are disappearing at an alarming rate under the blind eyes of those that are supposed to enforce the protection laws. Who cares about swamps! But they are the nurseries of our rivers! Without them, we are vulnerable to flooding, erosion and aquatic species extinctions.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller filed an environmental enforcement lawsuit Monday alleging that Pieper, Inc., a large swine confinement operation in Lee County, has had repeated water pollution and animal feeding operation violations. The suit alleges that on March 19, 2009, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources received a complaint that manure was being land-applied on a field at the Pieper operation with an irrigation gun, and manure was running off the field into a drainage ditch.

DNR officials investigated the next day and observed liquid that was “green in color and had an odor of hog manure” running off a Pieper field. The DNR took laboratory samples of the liquid at several points and found “extremely high concentrations of ammonia,” according to the lawsuit.

The suit also alleged Pieper land-applied manure without proper certification of the operators, misapplied manure using a spray irrigation system and failed to notify the DNR of the manure release. The suit also noted that Pieper Inc. had been the subject of environmental enforcement administrative orders issued by the DNR in 1978, 1991 and 2006 for a variety of confinement feeding operation violations.

The lawsuit asks the court to assess a civil penalty of up to $5,000 per day per violation, and to prohibit any future violations. The Pieper Inc. operation is comprised of a 7,100-head gestation, farrowing and finishing operation and a 1,300-head nursery operation, contained in 10 buildings. Manure storage is in below-building pits and a large slurry tank."

In my hometown, the owners of a pig CAFO had to empty a whole thankful of pig slurry on the ground because they were stuck. An environmental emergency crew came on site and made a report, sort of. The report does not mention the amount of pig slurry had been let go, nor the proximity of any ditch or stream was mentioned. An outraged housewife blurted out the incident to my husband on the phone, otherwise nobody would have known. Two men, neighbors of the CAFO, has witnessed the spill and even filmed it, but they did not notify the local media, did not mention it at the town hall meeting (although they were there). A city councilor was advised, but did not talk about it at the town meeting either. This conspiracy of silence makes me so mad!

Sharon Wilson believes asthma rates among children in the Dallas-Fort Worth area reached staggering heights because of shale gas drilling. "Is it coincidence that the counties with the highest numbers of childhood asthma coincide with the core and most heavily drilled areas of the Barnett Shale?" she wrote in her blog in January.

Wilson, who owns land and mineral rights above the Barnett Shale, began working to help people negatively affected by oil and gas development in January. Her independent blogging and part-time work with the Texas Oil and Gas Accountability Project grew out of the concern she had for her community, where drilling is pervasive and harming the environment, she said. "Here they have drilling rigs sitting in school yards, and there are just some places where they ought not to drill," Wilson said. "The problem is natural gas is everywhere," she continued. "They're drilling practically in people's backyards. If you look at the map, it's just everywhere."

The activity leads to a number of environmental and health risks, said Wilma Subra, a scientist and environmental advocate. Spillage and leakage during drilling may contaminate the soil, groundwater and surface water bodies, she said. Natural gas may contain benzene, a known carcinogen, which may be found in water and in air emissions. It can be particularly harmful for the people who live near drilling wells, Subra said. "You don't want to have it to where you're exposed to it all day everyday in your home," she said. For landowners collecting royalty checks from the gas companies, it isn't always a picnic. "If you don't own the mineral rights but own the surface rights, just one day and the equipment starts rolling in, and then you have all these impacts," Subra said.

Wilson, who said she is very concerned for the people in South Texas, urged people living on top of the Eagle Ford to ensure that their governments enforce the best drilling practices. They can do that by printing out "Drill-Right Texas," a document written by the organization EarthWorks that details best practices for operator-landowner negotiations, water and soil protection, human safety and wildlife protection, she said."

Long before the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that threatens the fragile ecosystem at the mouth of the Mississippi River, environmentalists, scientists and other groups have led efforts to reduce pollution upriver. One of those initiatives, Green Lands, Blue Waters, has been at work for 10 years, researching and advocating for sustainable farming practices in the Mississippi River Basin stretching from Minnesota to Louisiana. Those involved in Green Lands, Blue Waters, include experts from land-grant universities, farmers, conservation groups and governmental agencies.

"Basically, we're trying to clean up water quality through agriculture and so that includes getting more perennial crops out on the landscape," said Dr. Helene Murray, interim executive director of the St. Paul-based Green Lands, Blue Waters. Murray is also executive director of the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture and has an adjunct appointment at the University of Minnesota's Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics. The mission of Green Lands, Blue Waters is to transform the agricultural system of the region by developing perennial and continuous living cover crops for farmers to plant and profit from. "People are willing to try new things," Murray said. "And if they can see that it's profitable, and they have some environmental benefits out of it, they're totally for it."

The Mississippi extends more than 2,300 miles, and 33 states are in the river basin. Nearly 60 percent of the area is annual cropland. Corn, soybeans and similar crops have taken an environmental toll with sedimentation and the runoff of fertilizer and pesticides affecting the river. "We're not saying, 'Never grow corn and soybeans again,'" Murray said. "That's not realistic and it's not as profitable for farmers to do that. … We're just trying to figure out how we can make these systems function better."Planting more acres of perennial crops can help prevent soil erosion, reduce the loss of nutrients that occurs with runoff and improve water quality of the Mississippi.

"We want to keep working lands," Murray said, rather than having set-aside programs in which farm land may be idled for the purpose of conservation. "Those are effective in their own right, but we really want to look at how to make this profitable for farmers as well as providing the ecosystem services." Perennial sunflowers are an example of an alternative crop already being planted in the Upper Mississippi River Basin, but plant breeders are still in the very early stages of developing other crops such as perennial flax and perennial legumes, Murray said. The research also examines ways in which a crop like perennial legumes could be used in consumer products."

How I would have wished a school organic farm upriver instead of a pig CAFO in my town! How much kinder to the folks and to the river would have been a variety of crops and animals, instead of an intensive crowded water-based pig facility surrounded by annual monocultures of corn and soy!

Opponents of a proposed Nestlé Waters North America bottling plant in Cascade Locks launched their campaign today, handing fish and wildlife officials petitions with 3,700 signatures from Oregonians against the project.

Nestlé's first Pacific Northwest plant would tap a nearby spring that supplies an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife hatchery. The agency is evaluating whether replacing the spring water with Cascade Locks well water would harm the hatchery's fish or a creek the hatchery feeds into.

It's a big issue for bottled water opponents, who have battled Nestlé plants in California, Michigan and elsewhere. It's also a big issue for the small town of Cascade Locks, about 45 miles east of Portland. The plant could bring 50 jobs and nearly double the city's property taxes.

Opponents, including Food & Water Watch, Columbia Riverkeeper and the Sierra Club, cite local problems, such as increased truck traffic and higher stream temperatures. They also call bottling Oregon spring water a waste of a prime resource.

Nestlé would build the plant on about 25 acres of industrially zoned land along the Columbia River, running a pipe to ODFW's Oxbow Hatchery for salmon and steelhead about a mile away.

Nestlé is paying for state tests to ensure that the well water is as good for the hatchery fish as the spring water. If it's not, ODFW spokesman Rick Swart said, the agency won't agree to the swap. Julia DeGraw, Food & Water Watch's Northwest organizer, said about 20 of the petition signers live in Cascade Locks, population 1,050.

The opponents want policy makers and politicians to consider broader public opinion, she said, not just technical details."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/19/bp-coast-guard-officers-b_n_581779.html~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I had to read it in a french newspaper on the 22d, because since the 20th of May the secret everybody knows is out: BP, with the help of the Coast Guard and local Sheriffs, is restricting access to public beaches that have been oiled by BP's mess. A Mother Jones journalist and a CBS crew have been threatened, and it seems journalists have to be embedded with BP crews to be able to cover the Golf of Mexico oil spill. "The land of the free and the home of the brave" no more: the oil industry has made Americans their slaves and is taking away their civil rights, all because of oil addiction. Keep on trucking with your rifle hanging in your back window, friends, because you can no longer tread where you wish if you want to keep on filling your gas tank at a cheap price!

Manufacturers have been adding the germ fighter triclosan to soaps, hand washes, and a range of other products for years. But here’s a dirty little secret: Once it washes down the drain, that triclosan can spawn dioxins. Patented in 1964, triclosan quickly found use in medical supplies. By 1987, manufacturers were adding it to liquid hand soaps for the consumer market. Within a little more than a dozen years, three-quarters of all such liquid hand soaps would contain the chemical. And as these soaps were used, triclosan washed down residential drains along with chlorinated tap water, forming super-chlorinated triclosan.

In wastewater treatment plants, the bonus chlorine atom or two that tap water had added to the molecule tends to be stripped off, notes William Arnold, an environmental engineer at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. But in the finishing stage at those treatment plants, most water gets one last chlorine-disinfection step, which “will re-chlorinate the triclosan,” he says, before the water is released out into rivers.

Arnold’s group and others have demonstrated in the lab that that in the presence of sunlight, the super-chlorinated triclosan can undergo transformations that beget a series of dioxins. They include 2,8-dichlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, 2,3,7- and 1,2,8-trichlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, and 1,2,3,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin. The genesis of these compounds isn’t just some laboratory curiosity. Triclosan's odd dioxins also develop in the environment — big time, Arnold’s group reported May 18 online, ahead of print, in Environmental Science & Technology.

“It’s always of concern when we’re generating compounds that appear to be stable in the environment and increasing in concentration,” Arnold says — especially when any risk they might pose remains unclear. That’s why he describes the triclosan-dioxin trend that his team unearthed as “disconcerting.”

Oh, and intact triclosan may pose its own environmental risks, another study finds. It exposed male mosquitofish that had come from relatively clean water to triclosan for a month. Concentrations were high, about 100 times what is usually found in water. The treatment induced the guys to produce notable amounts of egg-yolk protein — something only females are supposed to do. Sperm production in these fish also took a big hit, falling by a third when compared to untreated males.

Bottom line: These data indicate the pollutant is “weakly estrogenic” and “imply that triclosan has the potential to act as an endocrine-disrupting agent in aquatic organisms,” according to Robert Angus of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Samiksha Raut of Dalton State College in Georgia. They describe their findings in the June Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry."

Gas well drillers tapping into the deep Marcellus Shales add up to 54 substances, some of them toxic, to the water they use to fracture that rock and release the gas.

And the state Department of Environmental Protection doesn't know what chemicals, metals and possibly radioactive elements are in the waste water that is pushed out of the wells. It is discharged into the state's waterways including the Monongahela River, from which 350,000 people get their drinking water.

"That's the bigger issue. They don't have an analysis of what's in the waste water they're pulling out," said Dr. Conrad Dan Volz, assistant professor in the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. "What they're putting into the wells can chemically change and be added to underground, and no one is saying how much arsenic, manganese, cobalt, chromium and lead is in the stuff. Depending on the concentration, it could be a hazardous waste."

Each well drilled into the Marcellus Shales, which lie at least a mile deep beneath parts of Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio, uses up to 4 million gallons of water to fracture the rock and release natural gas. The chemicals are added to the "frac" water that is pumped into the wells under high pressure to reduce friction in the pipe and allow the water to flow more freely into the rock layers.

Among the chemical additives are formaldehyde, a human carcinogen; various acids; a variety of petroleum compounds and several pesticides that are toxic to fish and other aquatic life. Many of the chemicals, depending on their concentrations, can also cause human skin, eye and nose irritations, and damage kidney, heart, liver and lung function.

Much of that frac water -- about 40 percent of the total used -- is pushed back to the surface by the gas released from the shale, and it must be disposed of. "Yes, we're concerned," said Mark Hartle, chief of aquatic resources for the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. "And we're more concerned with the recovered fluids from the wells than with the water they use to do the fracing initially. The problem is, we're not sure what they're ending up with so we don't know the constituents of the discharges."

Some of the waste water is taken to DEP-approved municipal sewer authorities that dilute it with their regular effluent before discharging it into a river or stream. Some is trucked to one of the state's six industrial water treatment facilities, where metals, oils and some dissolved solids are removed but where waste salts are a disposal problem exacerbated by the volume of the waste water. "The salts are the biggest issue right now and the most expensive thing to remove from the highly concentrated brines," said Paul Hart, president of Pennsylvania Brine Treatment Inc., who owns three of the state's six industrial treatment facilities and wants to build six more. "The Marcellus has wide variations in the amount of iron, barium and salt, and we need to know the high and low marks so we can treat it and we're still determining that," he said. "Right now we don't know as much as we'd like to know."

The drilling companies provide the DEP with lists of chemicals they add to the water but not the amounts of specific mixtures, claiming that is proprietary information. Four of the chemical compounds are complex pesticides that scientific assessments have determined are "very toxic to fish." One, 2.2-Dibromo-3-nitrilopropionamide, retards fetal development in rabbits. The pesticides are added to the drill water to stop the growth of algae in temporary holding ponds and tanks built next to the drilling pads. Algae and other "biofilms" can foul pumps used to push the water underground and into the shale. None of those chemicals should be discharged directly into surface water such as the Monongahela River, said Dr. Volz, who is studying the effects of pollutants in the rivers. "If there's enough biocide to kill algae, by the looks of this bromated compound there's enough to do damage to fish," Dr. Volz said. "Throwing it in the water is just crazy."

He said formaldehyde, which is a human carcinogen, "is always a concern," but any risk is impossible to assess without knowing its concentration. In addition to the pesticides, the chemicals added to the well "fracing" water include acids to dissolve cement around the pipe casings and open perforations in the pipe for the water to flow through and into the shale formation; friction reducers to make pumping easier; and additives to keep clay from reducing the flow of the released gas. Different pumping companies use different frac-fluid recipes and formulas and different combinations and amounts of those chemicals."

Le COVABAR a une nouvelle "public relations" depuis novembre 2009, et peut-être que le public sera mis plus au fait de toutes les bonnes choses que cet organisme accomplit avec très peu d'argent, car c'est là le nerf de la guerre. Si les bonnes actions en environnement ne sont pas mis plus en évidence, les fonds ne viendront pas, et les attitudes du grand public ne changeront pas non plus. Et la santé de la rivière Richelieu et ses nombreux tributaires ne s'améliora pas de sitôt. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I spent an evening at the annual general meeting of COVABAR who is celebrating 10 years of its existence this year. While I totally agree with the views of the leader of this organization about the state of the Richelieu River and environment matters in general, I'm afraid I would not be able to work within this top-heavy group. While this leader is fairly present in the Montérégie media, the work done (much more than I ever imagined) by its young crew along the banks of the rivercourses in our valley, all with very little funds, is not recognized enough and under-exposed.

The tension in the room that night could be cut with a knife, and very little input from the group seems to drive COVABAR's agenda. Different committees are in place to address different matters, but the members within each committee will be contacted later IF it is thought that a member's knowledge or expertise can be useful to the committee.

I had several subjects I wanted to question them about, like what do they intend to do about the natural gas exploration being done in the Richelieu watershed, or how come their main fund drive is a golf tournament, when everybody knows that golf courses are about the most polluting use of the land along a river, but after seeing how 2 knowledged and long time members were rebuffed after daring questioning a meeting procedure, I didn't think a public humiliation is what I needed at this time.

I imagine working within these parameters would give me a chance to do some good, IF I'm willing to accept the royal oversight! (I'm not sure I could stand it!)

Federal regulators gave clearance Wednesday (May 12th 2010) for a large and controversial field test of genetically engineered trees planned for seven states stretching from Florida to Texas. The test is meant to see if the trees, eucalyptuses with a foreign gene meant to help them withstand cold weather, can become a new source of wood for pulp and paper, and for biofuels, in the Southern timber belt. Eucalyptus trees generally cannot now be grown north of Florida because of occasional freezing spells. The Agriculture Department, in an environmental assessment issued Wednesday, said no environmental problems would be caused by the field trial, which could involve more than 200,000 genetically modified eucalyptus trees on 28 sites covering about 300 acres.

The permit would be issued to ArborGen, a biotechnology company owned by three big forest products companies: International Paper and MeadWestvaco of the United States, and Rubicon of New Zealand. Critics say that the eucalyptus trees, even without foreign genes, may become invasive. They also said the trees were heavy users of water, could spread fires faster and could harbor a fungus that sickens people.

“They’ve been a disaster everywhere they’ve been planted,” said Anne Petermann, coordinator of a coalition called the Stop GE Trees Campaign."

"In the same way that conventional eucalyptus have been a social and ecological disaster for the forests and forest dependent communities in the regions where eucalyptus plantations currently grow, GE cold tolerant eucalyptus will threaten communities and forests over greatly expanded regions.

In the U.S. southeast, one in five forested acres is made up of monoculture pine plantations, but the area’s cold winters have made growing eucalyptus impossible. Eucalyptus may soon replace these pine plantations, with significant impacts. Eucalyptus trees, for example, use 2.5 times the water of pine trees and have roots that grow much deeper than pine trees, threatening ground water sources in a region already experiencing extreme drought in many areas.

Large plantations of non-genetically engineered eucalyptus have depleted the availability of fresh water for communities, forests and other ecosystems. In the Lumaco District of Chile, for example, some indigenous Mapuche communities are completely surrounded by eucalyptus plantations. While they previously had year-round access to fresh water, today they must truck water in because the eucalyptus plantations have depleted the local water supply. In addition, the chemicals used on the eucalyptus plantations have contaminated the ground water, leading to rising rates of sickness in Mapuche communities.

Eucalyptus are also much more flammable than pine plantations. In the spring of 2007, wildfires in forests and pine plantations of Georgia and Florida burned for weeks on end. If these had been eucalyptus plantations, the fires would have been significantly worse. A dramatic example of the danger of eucalyptus fires was seen in Australia earlier this year. Raging wildfires, exacerbated by a drought, moved at over 100 kilometers per hour, devastating wildlife and killing 173 people.

Eucalyptus trees, which are highly invasive, also produce a compound that inhibits the growth of other plants, enabling the eucalyptus to form monocultures when it escapes from the plantations. According to the Introduced Species Summary Project of Columbia University, “The loss of biodiversity and habitat is a great threat from the ... eucalyptus. It creates virtual monocultures and can rapidly take over surrounding compatible areas, completely changing the ecosystem.”

Eucalyptus grandis, one of the species of eucalyptus used in the GE eucalyptus hybrid, is also a known host for the deadly pathogenic fungus Cryptococcus gattii. Cryptococcus gattii can cause fatal fungal meningitis in people and animals that inhale its spores. This fungus was previously found only in the tropics, but has recently been found in British Columbia in Canada and in the Pacific Northwest U.S."

It is widely recognized that fish populations have dropped drastically over the past century, but a new study in Nature Communications shows the decline may be worse than expected. Research from the University of York and the Marine Conservation Society has discovered that it was 17 times easier in the UK to catch fish in 1889—when ships were powered by sail—than it is today using high-powered motor boats with technological advances.

"For all its technological sophistication and raw power, today's trawl fishing fleet has far less success than its sail-powered equivalent of the late 19th century because of the sharp declines in fish abundance."

Employing government data, the study compared the amount of fish caught versus the number and size of the boats used during the past 118 years (from 1889-2007). Looking specifically at bottom dwelling fish, such as cod, haddock, and plaice, the study found that the availability of these species has fallen by 94 percent since 1889.

In the UK fish catches peaked in 1938—a combination of fish availability and increasingly sophisticated methods of catching vast amounts of fish—when vessels caught 5.8 times more fish than today. this research makes clear that the state of UK bottom fisheries—and by implication European fisheries, since the fishing grounds are shared—is far worse than even the most pessimistic of assessments currently in circulation."

"An investigation of the Robson Well has confirmed contaminated soils at the site. This is the only active well within the watershed region. It was drilled with no oversight by watershed basin regulators - under great opposition by Damascus Citizens. Thus we took two sets of aerial photographs, circled the site with a coordinated set of water tests, and our legal team filed an official complaint on October 5. We have had no response." http://www.damascuscitizens.org/Robson.html

"Aug. 27, 2008: Pennsylvania's DEP investigates reports that a gas drilling company "pumped dry" Sugarcamp Run in Independence Township, Washington County. Aug. 1, 2007: A driller pumps water from Cross Creek in Hopewell Township, Washington County, "down to the rocks on the bed of the stream," according to DEP." http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/17973811/detail.html

"The problem in the water here erupted on New Year's Day when an explosion in Norma Fiorentino's backyard well shattered an 8-foot concrete slab and tossed the pieces onto her lawn. An investigation by the state Department of Environmental Protection revealed that the culprit - methane risen into the aquifer because of nearby natural gas drilling - had seeped into the drinking water supplies at nine homes in the township, causing a threat of explosion in at least four of them." http://citizensvoice.com/news/gas-drilling-with-catastrophic-results-1.365468

There's nothing like learning from the people who have had to deal with natural gas drilling companies to anticipate the problems that come with signing on the dotted line.

An audit regarding the health of the Chesapeake Bay reveals that state agencies don't have the resources to investigate and prosecute polluters.

The findings come from state Attorney General Doug Gansler. It's the second report card on the Chesapeake Watershed based on visits to a number of tributaries.The decline of the Chesapeake Bay is linked to a doubling of population growth within the watershed, and agricultural runoff is considered the single largest source of pollution, the report said.

The most unsettling finding of the environmental audit is the lack of state resources to do something about it. He determined that state agencies don't have the resources to investigate and prosecute polluters, and when they are prosecuted, penalties and finesare so low that those caught consider it as the cost of doing business.

"We are going to have to have some political courage to make meaningful fines and meaningful enforcement action in terms of getting resources there. Look at the agriculture. Agriculture is about half the pollution that goes into the bay," Gansler said. "There are about 13,000 some odd farms in Maryland. The state allows six people to investigate 13,000 farms a year, and if they find a violation -- if they are lucky enough to find it and prove it -- then the total maximum fine is $350. You are almost asking people to pollute."

The audits will be used to help educate the public and decision-makers, as well as to help convince legislators that more needs to be done to crack down on environmental crime."

Clearville, Pennsylvania appears to have more bovine than human residents. The area looks peaceful, rural, and downright untouched by time—until the drilling pads come into view, until residents start describing their experiences, until the new "Emergency Management Coordinator" for the tiny town begins to speak of her concerns about her children’s exposure to unknown substances. This little town didn’t create a volunteer emergency management position due to worries about terrorists’ actions, but because of their accumulating negative experiences with natural gas drillers. Under the surface of Clearville lie many acres of underground storage areas for natural gas, and natural gas processing facilities dot the surface.

"My son’s farm lost some goats and some calves; my son is disgusted. It ruined the farm; it smells like rotten eggs. Drillers hit the vein of the spring, so after they started drilling we got more water but it wasn’t good water, it was rotten," Betty Clark explained in a private interview. "It has arsenic in it, but they told us it’s safe."

As she spoke, on Saturday evening, April 17th, other families from the Clearville area, between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, slowly filled a meeting room. About 57 people gathered to share concerns about water and air pollution from natural gas storage, drilling, and processing in their region. Julie Kuhne, the town’s new Emergency Management coordinator, spoke first, describing the oily yellow substance which covered her children’s toys, the hammock, ground, house siding, cars, grape arbor, pond, and vegetable garden of her home after a blowout. "The siren sounded for 20 to 30 minutes after the blowoff, but the next day the DEP didn’t know anything about it. I was terrified," Julie commented.

Residents say the company, Specter Energy, working in the area, has had emergency shutdowns or blowouts 23 more times since the incident described by Kuhne, and counting. "The company came after a few days and compensated us for our vegetables, replaced the trampoline, and washed the house, but I’m concerned about air quality and water contamination. I’m trying to get DEP to do a post-test. No one [at DEP] could tell me who is regulating the air, and my water test came back contaminated with toluene. So did my neighbors," Kuhne concluded. "A blowout is caused when a combination of well-control systems fail… a gas can rapidly expand as it flows up the wellbore… [it may] accelerate to near the speed of sound. … Blowouts can cause significant damage to drilling rigs, injuries or fatalities to rig personnel, and significant damage to the environment if hydrocarbons are spilled," according to Wikipedia.

Tillman (Mayor Calvin Tillman, of DISH, Texas) explained that the problem with compressors is air quality: "Each compressor is permitted individually, but collectively, the VOCs (volatile organic chemicals) they emit into the air, especially benzene and toluene, exceed annual safety limits." After DISH residents complained of headaches, irritated eyes, and other issues, Tillman commissioned a study performed by a certified, nationally recognized lab, Wolf Eagle Environmental, "the only firm we found that didn’t work for the industry," Tillman explained. Wolf Eagle lab reports from air samples found "multiple recognized and suspected human carcinogens" exceeding the ESL, or Effect Screening Level, within 500 feet of homes. Several toxins exceeded both short and long-term ESL standards.

Both air and water are worries in DISH. Recently Tillman received results from having his own water tested. "Now there are trace levels of ethylbenzene, styrene, o-xylene, and m/p-xylene in my water. When I had my water tested a year earlier, all those contaminants were at zero," Tillman commented. Wilma Subra, winner of a MacArthur Genius Award for her environmental work in Louisiana, wrote a Health Assessment Survey for the citizens of DISH. The survey found that 61% of the health effects experienced by citizens were consistent with exposure to the chemicals detected in the DISH air study.

Tillman expressed concern that ESL safety standards were set for a healthy 35-year-old male exposed in work settings, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. "But what about babies, children, and pregnant women, being exposed 24 hours a day?" asked Tillman.

Mayor Tillman had also toured Dimock, PA in March and personally written a letter to PA DEP secretary John Hanger insisting that safe drinking water must be provided to the affected families there. Tillman said he is paying all his travel expenses out of pocket, motivated to get the word out about air quality problems. "I’m concerned for the health of my children, and these children here are just as precious as my children."

Tim Ruggiero, of nearby Decatur, Texas, spoke next. He summed up his experience with drilling and natural gas processing operations in the Barnett Shale as a warning to Pennsylvanians, "it could happen to you, and it will, unless you fight it." Ruggiero described himself as "shell-shocked" by the behavior of Aruba drilling on his and his neighbors’ property. "My elderly neighbors are raising three grandchildren who swim in the pond on their property. Drillers used water for drilling, then put it back in that pond, saying it was clean water. The two boys swam in that pond and had to be rushed to the emergency room with respiratory distress and a rash from their necks to their feet. The only reason the rash didn’t get onto their heads is they swam with their heads out of that water."

Tim Ruggiero’s story is partially told at www.txsharon.blogspot.com and the DISH experience is detailed at www.townofdish.com. Mayor Tillman recommended to townspeople that they use the Oil and Gas Accountability Project www.ogap.org and Dr. Theo Colburn’s research at The Endocrine Disruptor Exchange www.EndocrineDisruption.org to find out more.

"When this first started happening, we don’t have many computers out here, we didn’t know what was going on," Clearville resident Hazel Mallow told this reporter after the meeting closed. "Now we are paying attention."

Sandra McDaniel, also of Clearville, privately shared a video she took of a company releasing a foamy substance directly on the ground. Suds have been seen in several local waterways, she said, "up to a foot high, then they dissipate." McDaniel added, "I learned from Theo Colburn that those suds contain 2-butoxyethanol." Asked about help from regulators, McDaniel said, "The EPA came out and said they’d be back in a couple weeks. But that couple weeks came and went months ago."

In Pavilion Wyoming, the EPA confirmed the presence of 2-butoxyethanol, a fracking fluid constituent, in well water of Laura Amos, who is now ill with a rare form of adrenal cancer associated with 2-BE. The drilling company claimed the 2-BE was "naturally occurring," and put the burden of proof on the family, which had not tested their private well water for the presence of 2-butoxyethanol prior to drilling.

Sandy McDaniel said when she saw suds in her pond, where suds had never been seen before, followed by algae growing when algae has never grown before, she became concerned and called the DEP. "The DEP said everything is naturally occurring," she reported."

A lot of boat ramps in the Saint-Lawrence valley are either privately owned, semi-private or municipal property. In all cases, if tanker trucks fill up with water for hydro-fracturing purposes start using Quebec boat launches, it has to be made clear in advance who will pay for the damages. Some citizens of Saint-Marc-sur-Richelieu have understood this; visit their blog here: http://mobilisationgazdeschiste.blogspot.com/

I'm the second generation of my family that lives in Richelieu, Quebec, in Canada. My family tree, both from my mother's and my father's side, has its roots in Quebec since the beginning of the 1600s: my ancestors crossed the ocean from France, leaving Perche and Normandy behind them. Both French AND English are my mother tongues: I learned to talk in both languages when I was a baby, and both my parents were perfectly bilingual too.